As the U.S. leaves the industrial age and a manufacturing economy and enters the information age and a service economy based on knowledge, children need high-level reading skills more than ever to succeed in this new global economy. They need to become independent readers who want to read, so they can learn for the rest of their lives.
But, ironically, as more emphasis is put on testing in the schools, children are reading less outside of school. We have reached a point where young adults in their 20s read fewer newspapers than their parents did and fewer books than young adults in a similar age group read just two decades ago.
Of course, there is a group of self-motivated readers, who will succeed in school and in their careers, in spite of all of the drilling and testing. They were lucky enough to have parents who read to them (and with them) and took them to libraries, basically instilling in them a love of stories before they even learned to read. (See chart below.)
But, even among this group, the desire for recreational reading can disappear, if no time is provided in school for teachers to read aloud to the class, for class visits to the school library for story time, and for “free time” in class so students can choose books on their own for silent reading. Unfortunately, all of these important activities are being eliminated in many schools across the country, so that schools can spend all of their time preparing students for tests.
This excessive emphasis on testing and basic reading skills, with no time for the enjoyment of reading, eventually leads to a diminished return on the investment of time. It is like the child who learns to play tennis at the age of four. After years of long lessons and intense drills, preparation for weekly tournaments, and never playing for fun, the parents are disappointed when the child “burns out” as a teenager and never becomes the professional player they hoped for. In fact, he may put down his racquet and never play a game again.
Meanwhile, as students advance in school and the stakes get higher, the emphasis on testing will cause many students to cheat for a grade, instead of reading a book. For example, they will look for study guides on the internet that summarize and explain the book in detail to answer questions or write “analytical” essays. Eventually, instead of seeing a book as a source of enjoyment that slowly reveals itself to a reader, they will see it as a collection of “facts” that they have to search for answers—if they actually look at the book itself, instead of a cheat sheet. They end up missing the whole point of reading.
The following chart will display the differences between the child who grows up to be a life-long reader and the child who avoids reading as much as possible.
TABLE 1Comparison of reading introduction methodsLife-long readersReading avoidersParents read to child from earlyParents don't read to child.months.Results for the child:Results for the child:May believe stories areEnjoys storieslimited to TV showsEnters school with largeVocabulary not developedvocabularyto same extent as peersCan “hear” the parts of wordsand is ready to learn to readRecognizes common plotstructuresCan visualize action in thestory and hear the characterstalkingEnjoys sharing time withparentsParents and/or teachers continueParents and teachers never readreading aloud to child.aloud to child.All the results above continue for theResults for the child:child. Plus, as stories become moreFrustration from comingcomplex:across unfamiliar wordsNew vocabulary words areFrustration from readinglearned and heard in contextwithout “seeing” the actionCan hear the tone of voice ofand the storycharacters and “see” action,as books have fewer andfewer pictures to providevisual cluesCan put pieces of the storytogether and “see” the wholeworld of the story in his or herheadCan become emotionallyattached to the charactersand the plot and care abouthow the story endsTeachers teach reading skillsTeachers teach only readingChild learns to:skillsDecode sounds and parts ofChild learns to:wordsDecode sounds and partsRead aloud fluentlyof wordsRead for informationRead aloudAnalyze contentRead for informationAnswer questions aboutAnalyze contentcontentAnswer questions aboutcontentSee reading as just a stringof wordsHave difficulty visualizingthe whole context andkeeping track of all thepiecesSee all reading as apointless choreChild becomes a balanced readerChild avoids reading because itwho can both enjoy reading andis “boring” and struggles wheneasily analyze content forforced to read for informationinformation
There exists a need for methods and specialized reading materials to address and provide a remedy for this imbalance in preparing students with the reading skills they will need in the 21st Century. But first, some background.
Humans have been listening to stories for centuries and building images in their minds, as the story teller described the characters and the actions. The audiences could “see” the lazy hare napping on the side of the road, as the slow-moving tortoise passed him and won the race in Aesop's fable. They could visualize the many heads of the hissing Hydra serpent in Greek mythology, as Hercules tried to cut off its heads and two grew back for each one he cut-off. And, they delighted in the rolling words of the Prince in the Grimm's fairy tale, who ordered the girl locked in a tower, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
This ability to listen and build mental images based only on words has been lost in this technological age. Children who sit in front of TVs for hours have almost no ability to do this. Because they miss this vital stage, they are lacking a necessary skill when they read words on a page. Also, because more and more effort is put into better and better images (i.e. HDTV) no one even recognizes how much this damages the child.
It is probably no accident that older adult readers are the most faithful readers of newspapers and say that reading a newspaper is a source of pleasure for them. They still remember the “Golden Age of Radio” when they heard stories on the radio night after night and had visual images of the Lone Ranger riding on his horse Silver, of Jack Benny crossing the moat in his basement to get money out of his vault, and of Fibber McGee opening his overstuffed closet and being hit on the head by all of the junk that fell out. Older readers had literally thousands of hours of practice in listening and visualizing—and keeping track of hundreds of characters and settings. When they read, they “see” and “hear” the action. Almost two generations have grown up without this experience and don't even know what they missed.
Modern technology has also provided “instant feedback” to children who, for example, can find answers on the internet with a few keystrokes or download a song or movie for entertainment. Books may seem too static and “slow” to such children. They look like too much work for a delayed reward. Which, on the surface, is true. But, by not reading, they are losing the experience of using their minds in a way that offers deeper rewards—emotionally and intellectually.
If no one reads stories to a child, he is missing a basic first step in reading. He can't imagine what is happening. He can't see the whole picture. Reading becomes an effort to decipher a bunch of phrases that lose meaning when no image is built in the mind. This is why good readers enjoy math story problems and poor readers fall apart when confronted with them. The good reader sees a story about a grocer who sells red apples for 15 cents apiece and green tomatoes for 10 cents apiece. He can imagine a buyer selecting the items and paying for them. The poor reader just sees numbers and the words “apples” and “tomatoes” and cannot see connections.
If a parent stops reading aloud when a child starts school and the child ends up in a classroom where the teacher never reads stories aloud, the child may fall behind as the assigned stories become more complex and no pictures are provided as clues. But, if a child can hear more complex stories read aloud to him, he can add each new character to a mental image and feel comfortable about keeping track of what happens. It is like he is building a movie in his head. (This is why very young children like to hear the same stories read to them over and over again. Each time the “movie” gets more detailed.)
There exists a need for methods and specialized reading materials to help the reader to get inside of a story by providing the reader with a listening experience to help them build the mental images and develop an emotional attachment to the story. Such methods and reading materials would advantageously provide a brief amount of background information. Brief amounts of background information would help the reader understand the context of the story and allow him to form opinions based only what he hears and later reads—just as the author intended.
There also exists a need for methods and specialized reading materials to put the author back in control of the story. Such methods and specialized reading materials would ideally reveal the setting, characters, and plot at the pace of the author's choosing. (Did Shakespeare ever imagine that characters like Falstaff would be sliced and diced in study guides, instead of simply enjoyed by the groundlings in the cheap seats in front of the stage at the Globe Theatre?)
One of the frustrations for reluctant readers is that they get overwhelmed by reading long paragraphs of introductory material and the introduction of numerous characters that may, or may not, be central to the story. They get lost in the first chapter and give up before they get hooked on the story and want to continue. So, they stop reading because the story is “boring.” (“Boring” often means it is too hard to understand.) There exists a need for methods and specialized reading materials to help them to overcome that barrier.
A lot of money has been spent trying to interest reluctant readers in reading books, newspapers, and magazines. Children's books have glitzy covers and toys attached to them. Newspapers have improved graphics and design. Magazines have specialized to reach unique audiences. In all cases, content has often been simplified and shortened for quick reading. But, such cases fail to “literally” take the reader inside of the story and show him how pleasurable reading can be.
If more children became enthused about reading, like the millions of Harry Potter fans, it could revolutionize education in this country. Unfortunately, becoming Harry Potter fans, by and large, did not make such children readers of other books. Thus, there exists a need for methods and specialized reading materials to get fans of a particular series of books, such as the Harry Potter series, inside of other books. With such methods and specialized reading materials, fans of one series of books can learn to like the characters of other books as much as they enjoy the characters they are already familiar with, such as Harry Potter.
Enhanced interest in reading could revolutionize our economy as children succeed in school, learn to “turn on their imaginations,” and create new ideas, products, and solutions to problems when they become adults.
Effective methods for mentally investing a reader in a reading material and specialized reading materials could be particularly helpful for at least two groups of children: (1) the children who were read to as children, but need a boost to try new and more difficult books on their own as they grow older (especially if no one is currently reading aloud to them); and (2) older children who used to love reading, but lost their enthusiasm by too much emphasis on reading skills and testing in the schools.
Properly designed methods for mentally investing a reader in a reading material and specialized reading materials could also be helpful for children who were never read to at an early age. For example, when someone starts to read to a child for the first time and awakens their imaginations, such methods and specialized reading material could be useful as a next step.
It is important to avoid using such methods and specialized reading materials in a manner that a child might perceive as being a test because an unintended result could arise. For example, researchers have found that children, who experience reading as nothing but a “test” of some kind, will see all reading as a test—even newspapers and works of fiction for leisure reading. This predisposition of reading as nothing but a test is advantageously avoided or reversed if already present. Children who become interested in a story, instead of seeing it as a test, will read the story even if it is above their normal reading grade level.
Finally, in an international reading test given to 15-year-olds from 32 developed nations in the year 2000, the U.S. was only average in reading skills. Academics who analyzed the results noted that good readers came from homes where books, newspapers, and magazines were plentiful and reading was valued. Also, the most “engaged” readers, the ones who read books, instead of just comic books, newspapers or magazine articles, were the most successful on the test. They suggested that if more children—especially boys—could become “engaged readers,” who were passionate about reading, they would have better prospects for successful careers in the new global economy.
Thus, there is a pressing need for methods and specialized reading materials that help create engaged readers.
The following U.S. patents and patent application publications disclose methods, systems, and apparatuses relevant to hybrid reading materials and methods for mentally investing readers in reading materials: U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,916; 2007/0079383; 2007/0072162; 2006/0100924; 2005/0040639; 2004/0117728; and 2003/0117341. The listed references are hereby incorporated by reference, in their entireties, for all purposes.